


Awakening

by BookCat (NintendoNerd125)



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Amnesia, Cults, Fan theory, Gen, Kidnapping, One Shot, Spoilers, like so many spoliers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 14:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13683195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NintendoNerd125/pseuds/BookCat
Summary: "It was a beautiful autumn day. The sun was shining, the leaves were a rainbow of colors, and there was barely a chill in the air. The majority of the residents of the town, Possum Springs, were enjoying this day. There were exclusions, though. One of them was Casey Hartley."





	Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody, this thing here is my take on the "Eide is Casey" theory. I'm not honestly sure whether I buy it or not, but I figured I might as well explore it in a fic. I hope you enjoy.

It was a beautiful autumn day. The sun was shining, the leaves were a rainbow of colors, and there was barely a chill in the air. The majority of the residents of the town, Possum Springs, were enjoying this day. There were exclusions, though. One of them was Casey Hartley.

Casey was a bit of a drifter, you see. All his friends had moved on since high school; even Mae, who practically nobody thought would ever have a life outside of town, had moved on. But, she didn’t just move on to some job like the rest of their friends. She moved on to _college_.

And where was Casey? Outside of town, running to his cousin’s trailer, which had recently caught on fire. But Casey wasn’t going to help out of the goodness of his heart, however. (Well actually he _was_ , but that was far from his only motivation.) Casey’s cousin ran a meth lab and Casey was his helper.

* * *

 

Possum Springs was dying. That wasn’t much a surprise, however - the town suffered a flood back before Casey was born and never recovered.

He hated it. Hated how there was no reception. How the buildings were closing down, one by one. How the jobs seemed to vanish into thin air. How his family was slowly losing hold of their house. But, most of all, he hated that the higher-ups didn’t give a single shit.

So, when his cousin came up to him one day, with a proposition to go into business and earn some money, Casey didn’t give him a chance to explain. He jumped on, no questions asked.

* * *

 

So, there Casey was - running. Running to see if his cousin was still alive. Running to see if any of the product had survived. And running from the creeps that seemed to be following him.

* * *

 

Casey noticed the first person when he was out by the abandoned Food Donkey. The grocery store had closed down around a month ago and the only people who ever hanged out there regularly were Jeremy Warton (or “Germ” as he prefered), the town weirdo, and Steve Scriggins, the town criminal.

Neither of them were there that day, however. Who was there was a person in a cloak. The cloak completely covered the person’s features, so Casey couldn’t tell if it was a guy or a girl. They were standing ramrod straight by the left wall, as if waiting for him.

Casey was from the bad part of town, so he obeyed one of the rules of thumb for surviving there: “If you see someone strange, ignore them”. So Casey did. At first.

* * *

 

He saw the next one a little farther down the road. This one was by the road, also standing completely straight, and was wearing the same kind of outfit: a long hooded cloak that obscured the person’s features.

Casey did his best to ignore this one too. But, seeing the same kind of person twice in a row, people who looked like they were following him, unnerved him enough to slow down a little.

* * *

 

Little did he know he would soon lose everything.

* * *

 

It was a couple minutes since seeing the second person. Casey was trying to get his pace to match back up to his old one, but he couldn’t. Dread settled over him like a blanket of lead, limiting his movements. Then, he went flying.

“What the hell,” he asked to nobody in particular. He was lying down on his chest, trying to use his arms to push him back up.

“Casey Hartley, you’ve been chosen,” said a strange voice above him.

“Wh-what?” Casey craned his head up to see the speaker. It was yet another damn cloak guy. “You… Did you trip me?”

“The details aren’t important. What _is_ important is what you can do for your town. Tell me Casey, do you love Possum Springs?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer the question, Casey.” Their tone (no, _his_ ; the person definitely had a male voice) was like that of a teacher or parent scolding a naughty child. (Casey should know; he’s been on the receiving end of the tone from both ends.)

“No.”

“ _No?!_ ”

“No. This place is a huge piece of crap!” Casey began gesturing to his surroundings. “The buildings are going, the jobs are pretty much already _gone_ , and no one does a single damn thing about it! So _no_ , I don’t love Possum Springs! People all talk about how this place is going to hell, but they fail to realize that it’s already there!”

The person nodded. “I see. We’ve chosen wisely.” He snapped his fingers. “Everyone, let’s get to work.”

The other two cloaked figures from before approached.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“What needs to be done,” answered the one who spoke.

And then darkness descended upon Casey’s world.

* * *

 

“The hell?!”

“He _survived_?!”

“Did… did the Black Goat _reject_ him?!”

“Why?!”

* * *

“Huh,” asked the teenager sleepily. He was slumped against a wall of some sort. It was dark, so dark he could barely see. A knife was close to him. “Wh-where am I?”

The people in the room, all of whom wore body-encasing cloaks turned as one to face him. One who seemed like a leader amongst the group stepped forward. “Hello.”

“Hi. Where am I?”

The person (man, he was definitely a man) chuckled. “All in do time, my child. But first, do you remember anything?”

“Anything?” The teen searched his memory but found nothing. “No…”

“Really?” The man’s voice sounded surprised. “Nothing at all?”

The teen shook his head. “No, sir. _Where am I?_ ”

The man was silent for a second, as if debating what to say, before bending down and taking the teen’s hands in his. “You’re home, Eide."

* * *

 

If only the teen could see the demonic smile that appeared on the man's face.

 

 


End file.
